Regarding stuff that will benefit the rest of the community... I am sure you have heard of the MyDoom-virus by now. This one seems to be extremely active, spreading itself like crazy.

I have received bunches of email with infected files attached. Fortunately, I have a realtime-virus scanner running ( Even though you might have to pay for one, I really recommend it )

I still wanted to make sure, so I did some research. A good place to start is always www.symantec.com since they offer free removal tools for most virusses.
I didnīt find anything about mydoom however ( well, they have a manual on how to remove the virus manually by looking through hosts-files, but I am careful about that kinda stuff ), so I went to www.pandasoftware.com
They offer a free removal tool which is supposed to take care of both versions of mydoom ( A and B ), you just have to fill out some short survey ( I did subscribe to their virus alert-newsletter ), and then you can download the file.
Also, Panda Software offers a FREE real-time online virus check... to really make sure the computer isnīt infected, I ran that one too ( in addition to using the removal tool ).
I know that that might seem pretty paranoid, but they recommend doing just that. And this virus is spreading like crazy anyway.
So... check out www.pandasoftware.com
They have a "special feature" on MyDoom here: http://www.pandasoftware.com/virus_info/

Check out the "How to detect it" link, or chekc out this information on the means of transmission of MyDoom:
http://www.pandasoftware.com/virus_info/encyclopedia/details.aspx?idvirus=44140#PROPAGACION

If that stuff sounds familiar and you donīt have a good virus-scanner running, I recommend to download the removal tool or use the ActiveScan.
Eric

PS: I know that this is pointless, but I am so SICK of that whole virus-thing. I mean, all these guys investing so much time and work in coming up with those dang things ! And donīt even get me started on spam-mail... grrrrr

NP: DT - Train Of Thought

metaljustice83

01-31-2004, 12:11 AM

how thoughtful eric. Everyone look out for this!!!!

(AT FIRST I THOUGHT YOU HAD GOTTEN IT ON YOUR NEW COMPUTER ERIC!)

EricV

01-31-2004, 12:26 AM

Hey...

well I thought so too !!! I was getting all these return-emails regarding emails I hadnīt send... btu thatīs one of the things this virus does !
So I was freaking out, especially since this morning I got an email from some antivirus-gateway which said "You have a virus". That, too, is stuff caused by the virus.
I always have the antivirus-scanner running, had alerts going on a lot this week ( ever since the weekend, I have gotten bunches of emails with infected attachements ). And I always deleted the files and the attached virus with that scanner.
And today, I ran the removal tool from Panda PLUS the Online-Virus scan they offer.
And the latter all said that my computer is not infected. So I feel better now :)

Even though it might take some time, I really recommend to do this ! If you have a good, up-to-date virus-scanner ( or a Mac ) this may not concern you, but everyone else should try to get hold of some antivirus-software or at least keep checking www.symantec.com or the Panda-site every once in a while.
ESPECIALLY if you have no Anti-virus software, or ( even more risky ) use some p2p-program. I heard that those are quite dangerous because a huge percentage of the files that are shared there are infected with some virus.
Eric

Hereīs more info on the newer one, MyDoomB:
http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=WORM_MYDOOM.B

Eric

EricV

01-31-2004, 12:37 AM

As mentioned above, this one spreads like crazy...
See this statistic ( a 7 day statistic )... impressive... or rather, scary !
http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=WORM_MYDOOM.A&VSect=S&Period=7d

Koala

01-31-2004, 03:25 PM

Hey Eric, thatks a lot for the great info, its good we keep info on stuff like that available on here

EricV

01-31-2004, 03:45 PM

Yeah, I had a short talk about this with Guni... he was thinking of posting something like that, too.
I think itīs a good thing if we occasionally share info regarding stuff like those virusses, especially in cases like the mydoom-virus, which is really having some impact ( it spreads like crazy ).
At the same time, I donīt think we should not post every virus-alert that is posted at sites like symantec, since that would mean A LOT of posts.
Also, if anyone else feels like posting a warning like that, please verify your information to make sure itīs not a hoax. Several of these sites have hoax-lists where you can see which alert / email is a hoax and which is not.

Other than that, I can only repeat myself:
- Try to get hold of a good virus-scanner and update it as much as possible. These days, it would be silly not to do that ( this goes out especially to the guys who use p2p-sources ).
If you canīt afford that, at least use something like the online virus scan I mentioned above on a regular base. Itīs free and even if it takes some time to do it, itīs worth the effort.
- It might be a good idea to sunscribe to something like the Panda virus-alert newsletter, just to be informed if some really tough one like mydoom is around
- Also, try to get some programs like Ad-Aware ( freeware ! ) which scans your hard drive for spy- and adware. Use that on a regular base. ( I do so every few days )

Eric

SeattleRuss

01-31-2004, 07:55 PM

Nowdays, just don't open any attachments that have .exe, .zip, .rar, .scr, .com extensions - (these are just off the top of my head- there are more!)
Also, since "distributed computing" and Microsoft's ".NET" framework is becoming more and more prevalent, you may dl an attachment that appears harmless, even to anti-virus software because the malicious code is not actually there *until* you have launched / installed the virus on your machine. The "harmless" program then contacts some rogue server, dl's and installs the code it needs to become the full-blown virus.

Apart from all the options Eric mentioned above I really think its worth the buck to buy yourself an antivirus, especially if you really LIVE off your computer. At the studio we keep our main CPU offline to avoid any trouble as we keep accounts and records as well as new stuff were working on in there. It sounds cliched but you cant be too careful these days, especially online.